


The Gold of Ah Toy

by Kaylar990



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:21:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylar990/pseuds/Kaylar990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal agrees to a robbery for a family in danger of losing everything to the Alliance; a heist that is at once clandestine and strangely selective. Although sure of their merits, he knows his crew is mostly untried and a little unwieldy. But worse than this, there is a very real chance of the First Officer airlocking the new Pilot before the job even commences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gold of Ah Toy

I  
Flyboy

Reasons to Stay.

  1. It’s a nice BFB!* Early model so you can still mess with the boosters and REALLY crack through the Atmo. Before they started putting all those stupid safety features on. (I guess because people were blowing themselves up by messing with the boosters so they could crack through the Atmo..)
  2. Equal share of all jobs; split 4 ways. Wait. 5. (FIVE?)
  3. Captain Reynolds is a great guy! I think he and I will be pals. He has a great sense of humor!
  4. Zoe Alleyne.



Reasons to Leave.

  1. It’s a bucket of bolts and I’m gonna die.
  2. All the jobs have been barter, illegal or unpaid. Oh. And split FIVE ways.
  3. The Captain is about as funny as a minefield.
  4. Zoe Alleyene.



The lists were perfunctory, always ended the same way; he always crumpled them up when he got to her name and then thought better and tore them methodically into tiny pieces. He did not want anyone finding her name written in his hand. Anyone.

            He sat at his small desk and stared blankly at the wall before him. He was unused to caring one way or the other about what people thought of him. But Zoe Alleyene didn’t even see him. She didn’t introduce herself to him, she didn’t greet him on deck and when he spoke she just stared through him off into the middle distance somewhere behind his midriff.

            He picked up a couple of the plastic dinosaurs he had on his desk.

            “You know that mustache of yours, the one you think is so funny?” said the Stegosaurus.

            “The one you think is so suave?” said T. Rex.

            “Maybe you should shave it off,” said Steg.

            “Because actually, you don’t look so suave,” said T. “Actually it makes you look like a B Grade porn star.”

            He took both toys and flung them away over his shoulder and then dropped his head down on the desk. What had two weeks ago looked like one of the best jobs he had ever had was beginning to feel like the worst.

  

*Pilot jargon for Big Fat Bug, a fond nomenclature for Series 3 Firefly Class transport.

II

What Did You Do in the War?

The surface of Phoebus had long since been pulverized by the solar flares and endless wind into towering storms of powdered glass that twisted over the surface and darkened the sun. There was no light, no air, no life, only methane and permanent night. Serenity’s descent to the surface was battered by such jarring turbulence that together both Mal and Wash had to grapple the yokes for a level landing. They could see nothing; just the shifting ropes of dust slamming the windscreen and Wash mentioned he was worried the surface would be scored by the time they departed. We’ll only be here a few hours, said Mal. They were to pick up cargo, get fueled and Mal was to meet with a client that he had so far, said very little about, even to Zoe. After a moment they faintly made out two illuminated staffs held by two figures, heavily swathed and motionless; they could have been stone sentinels but then one of them lowered the staff diagonally. He raised it back and then repeated the motion twice more.

Mal signaled back with three flashes of the jib lights from the bridge.

             “Okay, here we go,” he said mostly to himself and Wash detected an unfamiliar tension in his movements.

             Even in the hull the wind could be heard, tuneless moaning, voices caught in cosmic storms for all time.

             Mal was there for a meeting, and although he alone knew who with, he did not yet know where.

            Zoe helped with the EVA suit up. “Here,” she placed thick weights at his feet for his boots.

            “Right.” He stepped into them; she knelt and snapped them in place.

            The ship creaked and rocked slightly in the gales.

            “Wash, contact the depot; they’ll fuel us up. I’ll push the cargo onto the airlock with the mule. No point in all of us getting sandblasted.

            “Be careful Captain,” said Kaylee but Malcolm hushed her with a quick brush of his hand.

            “Not sure how long I’ll be. They said we’re not far, but I don’t know what far is here in this…” he paused. “… place.”

            Zoe nodded and then said quietly, “Like she said. Be careful.”

            He pulled his helmet on and twisted it shut. “Okay,” his voice sounding far away from within the shell. “I don’t intend to be long.”

Wash remained on the bay after fueling, helping Zoe and Jayne load the cargo of 4 oblong boxes, somewhat larger than a man and appearing a little disconcertingly like coffins. He and Jayne pushed two of the crates up the slope to the wall and he noticed that Zoe was looking at him. He stood up and she made a small motion with her thumb and forefinger, pinching her upper lip. She might have been smiling; he wasn’t sure. But he stood with his hands on his hips and then made a little twirling flourish under his nose.

            “Shaved it off,” he said nonchalantly.

            “Help me lift this, Flyboy,” Jayne was struggling to hoist one end of the crate above another.       

            “What’s all in here?” Wash lifted his end and shoved the box to the wall.

            “Starlings,” said Jayne and cinched in the straps.

            “Starlings! I love those things!”

            Jayne gave a dismissive grunt. “Just a bunch of flying motorbikes.”

            “More like sticks.”

            Jayne clearly did not like this picture in the least. “Can only get the gorram things four feet high.”

            Wash crossed his arms. On these matters he was expert. “Well, six feet is the norm but you can make them do all sorts of things if you know how to handle them. They can be a little pokey though.”

            “Pokey?” Zoe stopped and faced him.

            “They don’t have a lot of fuel line and if they’re used – are these used? What are we doing with them? Are we -” he didn’t want to say steal. “…are we reselling these or something?”

            “Captain has plans.”

            Wash noticed again there were four crates; he doubted Kaylee would be flying one.

            “Well, Kaylee can get them in good order if they have any problems. The thing is, the finocyl that makes them fly is the same line that gives them velocity so, it’s kind of like our wind pipes. What allows us to talk also allows us to choke to death.”

            Both Zoe and Jayne stared at him.

            He smiled uneasily. “I could have phrased that a little differently.”

            “A little,” Jayne grumbled and left them on the dock.

            He looked apologetically at Zoe. “I’m sorry. My thoughts – sometimes they bottle neck and don’t come out right. But, if you want any pointers at all on how to fly these, because the balance can sometimes be…”

            “Thanks, I can manage, but like you said, Kaylee should look at them.”

            “They’re all I ever flew in the war.”

            “Yes,” she said and turned to him. “What exactly did you do in the war?”

            He grinned. “Got high.”

            If he thought that she had disliked him before this, he was wrong. Her eyes narrowed to slits and the next moment she blew past him, leaving him with his smile fading fast, staring dumbly at the space she had just occupied and he whispered to himself over and over and over, “idiot. idiot. idiot.”

 

 

“Okay let’s quiet down, people.” There was an almost jovial mood in the galley with Mal’s return and everyone was chatting at once. Mal put his fore fingers to his mouth and silenced the room with short, sharp whistle. “Everyone listen up. We got a little job ahead that’s straight forward but has a few moving parts and I don’t want no sticks in the spokes. Got it?”

            Four pairs of eyes looked up at him.

            “Every thing you hear now is absolutely secret. To break trust with the party who has hired us will not only incur wrath from our client but will earn my special ill will. Are we clear?” he looked around at each member, lingering longest on Jayne.

            “What?” Jayne said testily and looked around at the others.

            “My meeting was with a representative of the Sung-Choi family.”

            His eyes met Zoe’s but she said nothing.

            “Some of you may know this name, doesn’t matter. They are very old, very venerable and very, very rich. Amassed their fortune centuries ago in a gold rush on Earth and just kept making more. They were pretty untouchable until recently when one of the sons made a big mistake. He backed the wrong side in the War. Namely, us. I don’t need to explain why you do not back the wrong side in a war against the Alliance and then lose. You don’t walk away with just your hat in your hands.”

            He made sure the impact of this statement sank in,  

            “The Alliance could have thrown them all in a camp, dissolved their empire, make it hard for them to do business anywhere in the ‘Verse,”

            “But they want their taxes,” said Zoe in low, hard voice.

            “That’s right. They want their taxes. And after years of negotiations a treaty between the Sung-Choi and the Alliance got hammered out. So aside from Number One Son doing life, hard, they are to pay reparations. They are to hand over the entire contents of their vault on Erebus.”

             “That all?” said Jayne.

              “That’s right, that’s all, Jayne. Just enough in there to repay the Alliance the equivalent of five battalions of men, aircraft, equipment and ammo.”

               Everybody exchanged looks.

               “What have they got in there?” said Kaylee. “Gold?”

               “They have gold. And there are artifacts that date back to the clan Matriarch, from Ah Toy herself.”

               Here Kaylee and Wash looked at one another. Ah Toy they had heard of and the idea of seeing any artifacts of hers or of San Francisco sounded intriguing. They turned back to Mal but must not have realized they were grinning.

               “Glad this pleases some people. Now here’s the job. We are going to Erebus. We are going into the vault and we are getting ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY. We have been instructed to retrieve one piece before the Alliance even knows what’s in there.”

               “One piece!?” Jayne asked incredulously.

               “One piece. One very valuable piece, worth maybe as much as all the contents. We have to go in, swiftly, cleanly, professionally and without murder.”

               “Excuse me,” said Wash who actually had his hand raised. “So who exactly did they hire to do this?”

               The Captain gave the pilot a murderous look and continued.

                "Trick is, -“

                “Always a trick,” muttered Jayne again.

                “The terrain is rough.”

                Kaylee suddenly beamed. “That’s why the Starlings!”

                “That’s why the Starlings. The front is guarded and the road is busy.”

                “And how we supposed to do this without murder?” said Jayne.

                “Enough! Bi tzuei!” Mal shouted and all murmuring stopped. “Jayne – we can start with murder right here if that’s what you want. And so help me Wash I so much as see your lips move –“

                Wash sucked his lips into his mouth and held absolutely still.

                “There is a way in - known only by the family. It has never been told to anyone outside the family and has never been written down by anyone in the family. But there is a back way, a trap door.”

                Wash instantly did not like the sound of “trap”.

                “Zoe and I will go in and get the box. Jayne, you’ll be outside and watch and either chase, be a decoy or shoot.”

                Jayne grinned. “Knew there’d be murder.”

                “You aim to frighten, not kill. What we want is nothing. No one needs to know what we have. And no one is to know ANYTHING is missing from that vault. Got me? The entire treaty with the Sung-Choi dynasty is at stake with this. Wash – when we get to Erebus I need you to score a drum of China Lake compound.”

                “CL-20? It’s expensive.”

                “It is expensive and that’s not your concern, it’s mine. I want to hyper charge the fuel we’re getting here so we can get away with no forwarding address, no signature.”

                “Got it.”

                “Kaylee besides seeing to those Starlings in the hold, I need you to give Serenity an up down in out thorough going over; especially since we’re going to be taking off out of here with a compound that is known for leaving craters the size of office buildings if something goes wrong. If you need a hand, you commandeer Wash. Got it?”

                “Aye aye Cap’n!”

                “Zoe, when we get to Erebus, you go get provisions. Listen at the markets. See if any of the vendors are nervous. They usually know if the Alliance is in town.”

                She nodded.

                “That’s it. This is going to be a big payday people so let’s not botch it.”

Everybody liked the idea of a Big Payday.

 

Mal and Zoe met privately in his quarters. Here he unrolled a simple map that appeared to be a mileage legend but actually described in steps and arm lengths how the vault was divided and packed. Zoe studied it while Mal fetched a small field kettle and poured them both tea.

“I don’t want Jayne going in.”

“Sir?”

Mal shrugged. “Could be piles of loose gold, spilling around, could be drawers of uncounted stuff since the war. I don’t want anyone stuffing their pockets.”

“You think he’ll get Gold Sick.”

“Happens to folk, sometimes when there’s a lot of it lying around. The thing is, I don’t know what to expect and I want him outside where we may need fire power.”

She sipped her tea and looked at the map but her mind was working closer to home aboard ship. She knew that Mal was pleased with himself and with the deal he had made to get an experienced pilot. She had to diplomatically couch the idea of Mal now firing him.

“Sir,” she said after a moment and set her cup down. “Can I ask you, do you know just what this pilot of ours did during the war?”

“I can’t say I rightly do. There wasn’t much of a record.”

“Sir, I asked him and do you know what he said?”

Mal looked at her uneasily. “No.”

“He said he got high.”

“He did?” Mal looked relieved. “Good for him!”

“Sir? I mean, the man got HIGH. There were good people fighting and dying with us and he just,” she swept her arm out as if brushing something unpleasant away from her.

“Well if he did, so what? Better than arming up against us. His planet went neutral at the very start as I remember and they didn’t support Alliance or Resistance. But I’m pretty sure they put him, like other pilots from his planet under lock and key.”

“A prison camp?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. But he was one of the first fliers they grounded on Caelum.”

“Well, he didn’t exactly jump underground and join us.”

“Lot of folks didn’t.”

“That’s why we lost.”

“That’s one of the reasons. But it’s not the only. Now Zo,” Mal crossed his arms and leaned forward to rest on his knees. She was his trusted first mate, almost as a part of himself that he had been able to keep intact since the war, even as he was reluctant to admit it. He divulged few things to people, but he confided in Zoe, although she rarely confided anything in him. When she spoke, he listened. But he needed her to see the value of the pilot from Caelum. “I know, he’s a wise-ass –“

She snorted.

“- but his planet paid a pretty hard price for going neutral so I don’t automatically hold someone from Caelum as an enemy. Besides, they are a little different from us.”

“I’ve done my social studies,” she said with a touch of aggravation.

“Well, Zo then I don’t know what to make of this infernal dislike you have for the man except maybe…” Mal unfolded his arms and stretched them out behind his back and raised his eyebrows slightly. “…maybe you just have a crush on him.”

Sh4e most flew straight up off the couch. “SIR!?”

Mal shook his head and cackled. “Simply a jest at your expense, Corporal! I’m just trying to make sense of the situation.”

Zoe was flabbergasted. “Are we finished here, Sir?” she asked trying to regain her composure and still had to take a few deep breaths when she pushed open the door to leave.

Mal watched her depart and thought to himself, that it was a shame she was so serious all these days now, that he never saw her smile, never heard her laugh. He couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous than Zoe and Wash together and the very absurdity of the notion amused him. What he did not find amusing was that he would more than likely be searching for a new pilot after this job.

  

III  
Contraband

 

She was still feeling heated from the exchange when she found herself on the catwalk a few steps away from the pilot’s bunk, the quarters closest to the bridge. She paused when she came to his room but was unsure why. The door was open; either he felt no need to lock it or it had swung open, in any case she found herself taking a glance in. It was fairly tidy; a few books in the corner, a model of an old interplanetary rover on the desk surrounded the ubiquitous cheap plastic dinosaurs he carried with him to the bridge. She wasn’t sure what she thought of this fetish with the toys but she was pretty sure she did not like it. And then, she turned to see if any one was coming, she bent a little further in and took a deep breath. She was relived to find it did not, in fact, smell of gym socks but of clean cotton. Neither did it smell like most of Serenity’s corners which, being an older craft had the pervasive taste of electrical fires and spent fuel. But in the room she detected something of an undertone, something she remembered from home…something.

“ _Oranges_??” she thought with shock. “Where in the gorram sand hills did you get _oranges_?” She found herself growing cross again and turned on her heel only to see Wash coming to his bunk, momentarily unaware of her but when he looked up and saw who blocked his way he halted, rooted where he stood. He looked one way and then the other but there was no path except forward or back.

            “So where did you smuggle oranges in from?” she crossed her arms and found herself not really vexed; perhaps she could even get him to share them. And this could have real entertainment value.

            His mouth opened but he could say nothing. For all his incessant chatter, she could have been a snake charmer as he just stood there, rendered silent and might as well be swaying in a basket. She suddenly noticed that he had incredibly blue eyes. She also noticed with a small amount of glee that they were wide with terror.

            “Oranges?” he finally whispered.

            She took a step forward and he actually recoiled. “Oranges, Washburne. ‘Cause you know, it’s an infraction to take on any undocumented….citrus.”

            “It – it is?? To take on undocumented fruit??”

            “That’s right,” she shook her head. “Not without the Captain’s express permission. Might be…..bugs.” This was fun!

            “But I don’t know! I don’t – I don’t have any, what oranges? I don’t have oranges!”

            What a joke, she thought. Hiding oranges from her. “I’m going to have to talk to the Captain about this,” she said shaking her head.

            “Wait!!” Wash virtually shrieked. “I swear, I don’t have any oranges!! It’s hand cleaner!!” And he held both palms out for her to smell. “I swear! I have to work on that control panel a lot and I always get grease everywhere – and I use this hand cleanser !! Smell!!”

            She was momentarily stymied and felt a bit of disappointment. No oranges? She was counting on him giving her one or more to placate her. She sniffed his palms. And then she felt the warmth of his body rise from around the loose collar of his flight suit and then something like a ribbon that had been coiled up inside her seemed to loosen and drop through the length of her torso. She gave him a small smile. “You have very blue eyes.”

            He blinked. “All our people do. Most do.”

            “That’s right. You’re from the so called Blue Planet. Caelum.”

“Caelem.” And he pronounced it Salem.

“The ‘Surrender Planet’,” and immediately she regretted saying such a thing. Saying the words collaborator or surrender still caused incendiary, even fatal fights. “I’m sorry,” she said very sincerely. “That was completely, entirely uncalled for.”

            He smiled in an offhand way. “That’s okay. I don’t think of myself as personally surrendering. But now look at us. Our planet is The Gallactic dump of the ‘Verse ever since the Alliance moved in. I mean, it was bad before but now…can’t see the sun let alone the stars. Win a vacation on the most polluted place in the Galaxy.”

            She appreciated the peace offering.

            He cocked his head. “Is it really against the rules to bring fruit on board?”

            “What?” she had become distracted. The game she had been playing had somehow shifted and reshuffled and she wasn’t sure now how it was to be played.    “Because I have an apple in my back pocket.”

            She looked up vaguely aware of him. “Oh, that’s fine.”

            He gave her a questioning look. “Well, I’m going to...” and he made a segue motion towards his bunk. “Try to get some rest before all this.”

            She nodded and continued on, detecting the faint trace of orange in the air.

IV

Nyx Nyx 

They set down in a sandy gulley on the outskirts of town. To he port side was a sheer sandstone wall and behind was a wide thicket of spiny evergreens and low brush that provided a semblance of camouflage. Zoe left on one of the Starlings, Wash took off on another for the fuel depot. The compound he sought was plentiful but also in very high demand; apparently most ships desired a traceless departure and the price was even higher than he expected. The benefit was no one thought twice of a pilot purchasing such a specific additive. The Starlings were sturdy devices and his barely tipped when he took off with a 100 gallon drum strapped to the tail but he flew back more slowly and in doing so he noticed, set back from the road in a clearing behind the pines, what looked to be a bar. The sign above the door said _The Nyx_ in red lights and painted off to the side of the name was what was what he was sure was the old Speedbird insignia. This is a pilot’s hang, he said to himself and made mental note of the road marker.

 

            Kaylee was apparently satisfied with her inspections and now sat on the ramp in canvas beach chair, her hair up in braids, savoring a lychee popsicle. At her sandaled feet was a large atomizer with a hose and pump handle.

Wash joined her on the ramp after stowing the drum. “What’s that?” he said.

“This,” she leaned over and handed it to him. “is my very own concoction. Brewed cat-thyme and some distillates and it is the perfect small animal repellant. Smell.”

He took a cautious whiff and heard a clap of thunder in his head and at the same time felt as if someone had jabbed him sharply in the nose. “JEEZUZ! Shite!” he wiped his eyes and handed it back to her. “Crap, that stinks! What do you want that for?”

“Don’t want to cook any bunnies when we take off. Been spraying it all back in the woods there. Smells just like fox urine,” she said with no small air of pride.

“I wouldn’t know,” and then he nodded to her arm where she had, once again, the ubiquitous band aid, this time splayed across her elbow. ”What did you do there?”

She swiveled her arm in to look. “Spring on that flat shaft part thing - ”

            “Scan blades.”

            “Right. Whacked me pretty good.”

            “You know, you should learn the names to all these parts you fix up so well and maybe you can get a JOB job.”

            “I don’t want a real job. I want to keep flying around with you and the Captain and Zoe.” At the mention of Zoe’s name she saw Wash’s smile vanish.

He looked from the ramp and squinted out to the road. “Yeh, well…”

            “Don’t get all sad on me.”

            “I’m not. I need to check something out. I’ll be back soon.”

            “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

            What does that even mean? Wash thought to himself as he turned the Starling back towards the road. Nothing wrong with a beer the day before a job. Nothing wrong with seeing if there were any other boats out there looking for a pilot.

 

It was a pilot’s bar. Parked outside were mostly small transport vehicles and low flying ground scrubbers like Starlings that were popular with flyers. He pushed open the door and was swallowed by the darkness. He walked carefully, sun blinded, in the direction of the bar and let his eyes adjust as he leaned on it, thinking of past offers. They had not been bad; the Alliance had sleek passenger transports and had even extended a promise of a salary while he got certified. There had also been an outer planetary cargo barge where he could have been now, flying fat, dumb, and happy. And then Malcolm Reynolds had come along saying it’s a Firefly Class 3 and he needed a pilot for some mischief. He had inspected the helm and then he met the first mate, Zoe Alleyene. He told Mal right there he was their new pilot.

            The bar inside was quiet. Motes of dust drifted in a shaft of light.

            The bartender stood opposite him. “Do for you?”

            “I’ll have a beer.”

            “Don’t have beer. Have sake, gin and pin loa which is a lot like –“

            I’ll have a sake.” He turned around to scan the room, resting his elbows behind him on the bar. Immediately he saw the Alliance commercial pilots, a glum and brooding group who didn’t speak to each other but glowered over their individual drinks in silence. He could not fathom being among their ranks although he had to admit they had pretty swanky uniforms.

            There were several other tables with a smattering of customers, no one in advanced inebriation, mostly lone drinkers spending their afternoon and part of their pay. Then he heard a loud shout and raucous, braying laughter as his eyes trained to the back corner where four men sat around a table littered with glasses and bottles. None appeared to him to be flyers and looked instead like common low orbit smugglers, their guns and ammo belts out in the open; they seemed at once ill at ease and over confident, a bad combination. He turned back around to the bar and as he did he heard very clearly one of them say the name, Madame Ah Toy.

            His hands, his body, his face felt suddenly very cold and he held his glass to his mouth but did not drink. Someone put on some music, looping neon synthesizers and electronic drum machines that smoothed conversations into homogenous noise.

            People from Caelum, aside from distinct reddish hair and blue hued eyes, have very good hearing.

            He stood at the bar and focused all his concentration in the direction of the table. He pretended to sip his drink but actually just pressed the rim to his mouth noiselessly and listened, sorting through the staccato rhythm of the music and the voices and the general movements within the bar. And when he had heard enough, he downed the rest of his drink, dropped some crumpled bills on the bar and made his way towards the door as if in no hurry, even pausing to look at a photo but put his hands in his pockets because they were shaking.  

            Once outside he felt something like panic seize him and threw himself onto the Starling then kicked it into high gear and sent it spinning up to the tree limbs where he backed it over the roof of the bar, cut the engine and dropped flat and peered cautiously over the edge. He watched and waited and when he counted to 100 he took off again, at tree level, the Starling’s small gear box screeching in complaint and when he reached the sandy gulley where Serenity was nestled he jumped from it still screeching where it crash landed into the wood, its engine blasted.

           

Mal, Zoe and Jayne were all in the galley, weapons spread in front of them, surveying what of the arsenal to employ. Mal was inspecting his revolver’s cylinder when Wash came stumbling in. “Where have you been? I told you to give Kaylee a hand.”         

“You can’t go. Men. With guns. BIG GUNS.” He held his hands out two, then three feet apart. “And they know about door!!”

            Malcolm turned and faced him fully. “What’s this all about? Who?”

            “In the bar. I heard.” Wash was out of breath and had to take a gulp of air.

            Jayne looked up from his guns that for the most part looked like rocket launchers to Wash, which, to an extent, they were. “You found a bar?”

            “Men. Four of them. They are going in the SECRET DOOR and they have guns – and they are going to kill anyone they come across –“

            Zoe, Mal and Jayne exchanged looks.

            “I went there for a beer. Okay, I went there to see, to see what kind of pilots I might be flying up against out of here and I overheard them.”

            “To see what kind of pilots...” Mal said suspiciously

            “It doesn’t matter.” Wash raked his hands through his hair gripping and twisting it in his emotional chaos. “You have to believe me. Please. PLEASE! Do not do this – they are going to kill you!”

            Mal shook his head. It didn’t make sense. He knew he hadn’t been sold out; there were plenty of people on Erebus who knew where the vault was and a lot of big talk about cracking it. The pilot was a panicked man over-reacting to a bunch of big talk in a bar. “Wash, you just be at the controls and be ready. If any of this is true we’ll have to get away that much faster.”

            “NO NO NO NO NO! Please!” and instinctively he reached out and grabbed Zoe by the shoulders as if to shake her.

            Mal stopped, Jayne stopped and later Wash considered himself lucky not to have received a right hook to the head but she looked up at him and said mildly, “Wash, what did you hear?”

            He let her go and swallowed. “There were four men, armed to the .,.” he made a large swinging gesture.

“That we got,” said Mal.

            “I heard them say Madame Ah Toy and that got my attention. They seemed to know a lot about the hoard. They said a name…I can’t …and they definitely knew there was a secret door although, I don’t think they knew exactly where but they know enough. I think they’re smugglers.”

            Mal looked at him closely. “What did they look like?”

            Wash became a unsettled again. ”I don’t know! Like – smugglers – they had –“ he motioned again with his arms. “Guns! Lots of ammo. And one had this tattoo.”

“What was the tattoo, Wash. “

“It was a X.”

“What else?”

“The name I heard – Feng or Fen Cho…”

Mal drew himself up.

“Sir?” said Zoe with growing unease.

“Well, for one, those aren’t smugglers. From our Pilot’s description they are the Tenth Cohort, mercenaries that Feng Hua Choi, number one disobedient Son hired during the war. Sounds like they aren’t the only ones who know the Alliance is taking over the goods and they want to grab what they can before that happens.”

Wash gave a groan of relief. “So you’re not going to go now, right?” He looked over at Zoe. “Right? RIGHT?”

Zoe turned to Mal.

            Mal faced them and then took up his revolver and leveled it at a target off to the side. “Well, since it looks like we have company then we might as well take the front door.”

 V

Heist

 

Mal and Zoe peered over the hill to the where the entrance to the vault stood, carved into the stone of high volcanic escarpment. There were two Alliance guards on sentry, replacing family’s private security since the treaty. Mal considered this lucky.

            “We never would get past the Sung-Choi.”

Mal lobbed a concussion grenade over the hill and it exploded with a loud pop. When the smoke cleared the two guards had toppled, unconscious, it became quickly apparent there were no other Alliance guards outside to contend with. The Alliance’s greatest shortcoming was their solid belief in their own invincibility.

            “Those boys’ll have a bit of a headache when they wake up,” he said as they scrambled down to the entry way.

            Zoe watched the road behind them while Mal assessed the lock. “Stand back; cover your ears.” He pressed a small blasting cap encased in putty under the door and then cupping his hand over his ear and shielding the other with his raised shoulder, fired at it. It blew; the smoke cleared. The door stood.

            He swore under his breath, miffed at having wasted artillery. “That was a damn fine bomb.”

            ‘Sir,” Zoe said over her shoulder. “Try one of the combinations.”

“We have ten – I only have three tries.” He studied the key pad and then entered a sequence of numbers, the first and simplest of those he had memorized.

There was a click, a buzz and the door slid open.

“Go get the Starlings!”

She was already at a run back over the hill.

            Mal looked around the threshold for any sign of springs, trip lines or lasers and then stepped gingerly through the door.

            He turned to see Zoe coming up fast, straddling two of the Starlings at once, knees on each seat and one hand on each throttle. She landed them at his feet.

            “Damn, Woman! Why didn’t I know you could do that?”

            “I don’t believe you ever asked.”

            Mal looked at her. “Well, I’ll consider that the next time we have to-“ the first step they had taken into the hall set the alarms off, shattering the air around them. They doubled over, deafened by the claxon of sirens and blinded by strobes. Mal waved his hand in front of Zoe to get her attention.

            “JUST COUNT!!” he mouthed and although he knew he was screaming, he couldn’t hear a word he said.

            “I AM!”

They stumbled forward, pulling Starlings that idled at waist level behind them. The vault was deep but relatively simple in design, a cruciform irregular in length.

            The further they went the more the space they could put between the ear pummeling alarms. “Just count. It’s all on the map. We weren’t meant to see or hear inside; just count the steps.           

            “I am ---51, 52, 53.”

            “Turn here.”

            With the turn the sirens grew more distant but their ears were now ringing. The corridor was unlit and growing darker with each step, their visibility only a length ahead. Mal motioned urgently to Zoe to stay close to the wall and pointed to the center of the path.

There she could faintly see black holes in the pathway, pits wide enough to stumble into, deep enough to possibly fall forever. She made a concerted effort to stay close to the cavern wall.

Then in fifty steps they came to an archway that opened into an enormous vaulted room, engulfed in blackness. They moved cautiously inside; a storeroom tightly packed with irregular crates and shapes but they could distinguish nothing individually.

“Let’s get a little light in here,” Mal said softly and she pulled a flare from her belt and lit it.

At their feet, to their sides and above their heads was an arsenal the proportions of which they had never seen, not during the war, certainly not in civilian life. Rifles, semi-automatic and automatic were stacked like cord wood. Ropes and coils of ammunition laced around missile launchers. Grenades spilled out over the floor like loose produce. All of this was in between rows of crates some locked, some bolted, all marked with numbers and some with Chinese characters.

Mal whistled through his teeth. “I am REALLY glad we didn’t bring Jayne now.” The passage seemed to go to infinity.

Then they both became aware of the sparking flare Zoe held in her hand.

“Uh,” said Mal.

“Right,” said she and walked backwards slowly and carefully to the archway where she held the torch aloft high to send in what light she could. Mal proceeded into the room, counting each step

Zoe hissed into the darkness. “Sir!! I hear voices!” Men were shouting at the entrance.

            Mal kept counting and then looked down at his feet where he saw a long box, no locks or bolts, but tied around the center with a single sash and attached to it was a small paper banner painted with neat, Chinese characters.

            “I found it!” he called to Zoe.

            “Then get it and hurry! I hear lots of voices!”

            He bent and grabbed at it and then let out a sharp curse. It was much heavier than he had expected and ended up half lifting and half dragging it back through the storeroom to where Zoe was anxiously waiting with the flare.

            “Help me get this thing up!”

            She lifted one end and looked at him. “Should have put another disk on the weight machine, Sir?”

            He scowled and they lashed it to the back of his Starling and then he glanced at the paper card and translated the Cantonese. “‘Evil will befall those who harm the contents of this box’ – Hmmm. Nice flair to it, don’t you think?”

            There was a battery of gun fire from the direction of the entrance.

            “Sir!!” Zoe was on her Starling. “Let’s go!!”

            Guns drawn they swooped through the corridor and now Mal, who had memorized the location of the hidden door from the outside was hoping he could retrace it from within. Without too much deliberation, they flew forward, further into the black tunnel. There were more shots and Zoe looked behind her.

“I see figures back there!”

“Don’t look back! Stay with me!” It was extremely dark and he knew they could lose each other in a matter of seconds. Mal leaned into his handle bars exhorting the Starling to go faster. “Shin swei these things are slow!! Go, go, go!”

They approached a wall with a line of large box crates, bolted together with four plates at the center and Mal halted abruptly. He raised his gun and shot the plates away; the front planks fell and sunlight streamed in revealing an opening just wide enough to fly through, one at a time.

“Here! Now go! Go!” He waved her forward and she shot through leaning tightly to her Starling. He turned to see if any of the forces were within sight and when she was clear he went through himself holding tightly to the neck of his vehicle.

He found himself almost immediately in free fall. The door had opened out to a steep ravine and the Starling, designed only to echo fly at up to perhaps twenty feet, went into a stall. The extra weight of the box strapped to the tail made the small craft suddenly tilt backwards and spin.

He heard Zoe shriek “Go down! Just go down!”

She steered up towards him as far as she could and motioned him to try to get towards the slope. He jerked and leaned and swung his body in any action to propel it towards her and somehow as the Starling spun towards the hill it suddenly coughed back to life. Zoe had her eyes on Mal to see that he was out of danger only to nearly collide with Jayne who had weapons drawn.

            “Gorram smugglers right over there like vultures – there! See ‘em?” and he raised his gun to fire.

“No!” Mal waved his hand at Jayne as his Starling finally steadied. “Wait!”

            “Let em go!” Zoe cried. “We need to get out of here! Sir!”

From the space Mal and Zoe had fallen came two Alliance light military crafts soon joined by a third that had flown over the escarpment and now hovered by the opening. There was a cracking of static and a voice barked over a bull speaker: “You there! Stop or we will fire and we will aim to kill. Lower your weapons at once and come forward.”

            Jayne lowered his gun.

            “Not us!” hissed Mal. “Look.”

            They saw that all the Alliance troops had arms drawn on three men who maneuvered a light platform fitted with heavy weapons, all drawn and facing the Alliance forces. Mal saw the moment

            “Quietly. Out of here.”

            They nudged the Starlings forward when out of the brush bombed a hovercraft, three men aboard with mounted guns firing as they flew over the hill, heedless of the three small Starlings just below their airspace. Jayne and Zoe slipped out from beneath, the Starlings proving nimble enough in a quick turn but Mal, with the heavier load hadn’t the maneuverability. The heavier craft clipped him and spun him out of control, throwing him from the Starling and where he hit hard on the ground. Jayne hoisted his launcher but even as he tried to take aim, one of the men, in a short leather tunic and breeches, a large armor piercing assault rifle slung over his back and on both of his biceps, the letter X tattooed in black. He pointed the handgun at Mal’s prone form.

“Don’t shoot him!!” screamed Zoe and she wheeled to Jayne. “You got that guy in your sites? Can you get him and not the Captain?” she gasped.

The mercenary looked down over his gun at Mal who tried to rise up onto one elbow. “You Malcolm Reynolds?”

His ears still ringing and his vision blurred from slamming his head on the ground he was able to make out his name and nodded.

“You got what you came here for?” said the mercenary, and he lowered his gun.

Zoe raised her arm over Jayne’s sights halting any movement he might make. The mercenary spoke in a voice used to giving commands.

“Then you hang on to that package and haul ass.” He then turned and took in Jayne and Zoe with a glance and then looked back to Mal who rubbed his head and tried to sit up.

“You the Fighting Tenth?” said Mal groggily.

“You don’t need to be asking no questions. You just get your people out of here and don’t look back.”

Zoe had leapt from her Starling and ran to Mal’s side. “C’mon Sir. Let’s do as the man says and get.”

Mal managed to crawl onto his Starling and shoved it into gear and they flew low through mist filled ravine when the heard the muffled thunder of a large explosion coming from the direction of the vault. Seconds later they felt the shock wave; they didn’t look back but clung tightly to the Starlings in the concussion of the blast, kept their heads down, pushed on to the sandy gorse lined road and then to the red cliffs where Serenity was waiting, engines warm and firing test bursts of fuel, ready to break atmo without a trace.

  

“Get down here Wash! I know you’re on auto so get your butt to the Galley, now. I said MOVE IT, HUSTLE!” Mal switched off the intercom and turned to the rest with a pleasant smile.

            Kaylee procured some glasses of various shapes; Zoe inspected them in the light and wiped the rims of a few with a cloth.

            Wash poked his head in the galley.

            “Join us for a toast with Kaylee’s incomparable hooch.”

            Wash raised his hands. “NO. THANK YOU. I’ve smelled that stuff.”

            Kaylee laughed out loud with a joyful hoot. “This isn’t the fox pee!”

            Mal furrowed his brow at this but he twisted the cork and the popped it with a bit of a flourish. Into each glass he poured everyone a generous amount of clear liquid. “To the Gold of Ah Toy!”

            They took their glasses and raised them together, “To Ah Toy!” They swallowed and then there was some sputtering, mostly form the men.

            “Delicious.” said Mal in a strangled voice.

            “I have to be careful when I drink,” said Wash leaning against the galley sink. “I tend to get silly, make, you know, jokes that nobody gets.”

            Nobody could tell if he was joking or not.

            “Well people, allow me to say,” and here Mal took a look at his crew assembled around him, Zoe and Kaylee at the table, Jayne with his arms folded and an unlit cigar in his mouth, Wash leaning against the counter, “that you have all performed with the skill and dexterity, with everything I know this crew is capable of. And some with, up until now, unrecognized acrobatic talents.”

Zoe looked up innocently and tasted her drink again.

“And some with unexpected restraint.” He looked at Jayne.

Jayne scowled a little but tipped his glass in Mal’s direction.

“What happened down there?” said Kaylee in a quiet tone.

Mal thought for a moment and then said, “And one more toast if I may. Refill if you need.”

Everyone refilled their glasses.

“Some people the war never ended - the Sung-Choi would see their wealth go up in flames than have one coin of it in the hands of the Alliance. Right as I can figure it, they hired us to do the stealth and the Tenth to finish the vault; hopefully make it look like an all out robbery. Maybe they can keep a treaty in tact, maybe they don’t care. So here is to the Family and here’s to the Fighting Tenth Cohort.”

            “To the Tenth,” said Zoe.

            “Here, here.” They swallowed again; there was less sputtering.

            “Well I’m just glad to be off those gorram flying sticks. There’s just something unnatural about them,” muttered Jayne.

            “That’s just because when you fly them upside down they’re harder to sit on,” Wash said behind his hand to him in a stage whisper.

            Mal heard a sound of a woman laughing; he turned and he saw Zoe, her head tossed back and smiling broadly, showing her white teeth, her cheeks round. He stopped to admire this and was about to nudge her and say, just what that strange sound was but she wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were trained on Wash. And he noticed when Wash turned to place his glass on the counter that she looked at him like a big, hungry jungle cat looks at the flanks of a water buffalo. Good lord, he thought as he grasped that something could really be going on there. This was exactly what he didn’t want. Not on his ship, not with his First Officer. Not with Wash. But Wash was oblivious and talking with Kaylee. Mal paused and then attributed his imagining to the potency of the drink.

            Jayne excused himself; time to settle down and get some decent shut eye, he said.

            Wash swallowed the rest of his drink and then said in a strained voice, “Ohhh yehhh. I think I can actually get some sleep with this stuff.” He coughed and looked into the bottom of his glass.

            Kaylee grinned and patted his arm. “Better than fox pee, right?”

            Wash looked undecided.

 

 

Jayne went past his bunk to the forward hull, where the valuables were stowed in a cage with a pad lock. He had the key and let himself in. There was the box from the Sung-Choi hoard, from Ah Toy herself, with the mysterious golden treasure. He just wanted to take a peek at what could possibly be so exquisite; so valuable that a family would risk their existence for its recovery. Strange as well, it had no locks. He bent and untied the sash and opened the lid. Inside was a long rectangular object, wrapped in purple velvet. He attempted to lift it but had to adjust his posture to do so; was very heavy and he grunted. Expecting the warm radiance of gold he stopped and thought at first he had instead come to another box but to his disbelief, what he held looked like a plank of terra cotta. He raised it a little higher from its case and blinked. “It’s nothing but a gorram piece of painted steel.” Old salvage steel like they used to bridges out of. He almost spat in his disgust. Crazy fracking Malcolm Reynolds! Him and his wild eyed fairy tales of freedom and Gates made out of Gold that spanned oceans. He shook his head and replaced the beam in its box and went to bed, happy that his pay wouldn’t reflect this incredible bamboozle.

 

Wash came to his bunk with an uncommon sense of well being; that maybe things might work out if he was patient, that maybe he just needed some time to figure out this mischief business. He walked into his room and stopped.

On the bed by his pillow were two bright oranges that gleamed in the dark like gold.


End file.
